In the spirit of the season, a sample from Island of the Mad, when Russell & Holmes set out for a haunted island of the Venice lagoon, Poveglia.
Before leaving the hotel, Holmes and I had studied the general maps and my slightly more detailed sketch of this tripartite island. The boat-house, on the southern of the two dividing canals, faced the abandoned military hexagon, but was close to the area where I had seen signs of work—just the area where we now saw lights from behind a shuttered window.

But I kept us moving, as slowly as the big motor would permit, until we had circled around to the northern end again. “The eastern side?” I suggested, and felt more than saw his assenting nod. We doused our running lights, and by the thin glow of the moon steered towards the opening of the upper canal. I shut off the motor and reached for a paddle. When we were close enough, Holmes scrambled to shore with the tie-rope, fastening us to a convenient tree.

We led the way down the narrow stone path along the edge of the island, which was light enough to show in the night, but a dozen steps down it I slowed, then stopped altogether.

“Holmes, I smell something very dead. Do we want to risk walking through it?”

And finally, if the book brought you pleasure, I hope you’ve mentioned it to your friends? Word of mouth is the only really effective publicity, so you might like to do so—and we even made an image for you to post, if you so wish….

I truly appreciate all your support, with this and all my previous books. Yes, you’ve put my name onto bestseller lists all over the country, but more than that, you give me the awareness of a community of friends. Thank you.

As I’ve mentioned before, Island of the Mad, though originally intended as an escape from the events of 2017, has become all too relevant to daily life.

Take the recent fashion choice of our First Lady as she set out to comfort a group of underage political prisoners:

As various writers have pointed out (hereand here, and here, although for some reason that one takes a while to come up) the phrase I don’t care is a loaded one, uncomfortably close to the equivalent of wearing a swastika. (Which, by the way, that same clothing company also produced[claiming in indignation that no, this was the Hindu suastika] —perhaps to go along with their holocaust-uniform shirt[But that’s a sheriff’s star!]

In Italian, Me ne frego was a slogan of Mussolini’s Fascisti, and although it’s usually translated “I don’t care” or “I don’t give a damn”, it’s considerably ruder than the English words would suggest. (Fregare means to rub: gesture optional.)

To have a First Lady proclaiming that she really doesn’t give a fuck is…startling. Still, it’s hard to believe that this particular First Lady, fluent in Italian, born in a town that felt Mussolini’s power during WWI, and above all a woman who wore clothes for a living, would be unaware of this garment’s overtones.

The only answer is that there is a force of Resistance within the White House. At which point one has to wonder if Mary Russell has been in touch with #freemelania, and given the younger woman a few tips on subversive behavior.

My buddy Rick Kleffel and I got together to talk about Island of the Mad. I love doing interviews with Rick, one of those interviewers who not only reads the book, but thinks long and hard about it.

He says:

…perfect summer fun, and chock-a-block with enough thought-provoking needles and actual history to pleasantly fill our minds. Mary Russell’s travels in the past manage to not just entertain the present. They illuminate it.

Our conversation is now up as a podcast–and also as a quickie ‘cast–here. Enjoy!

Whenever I set out to write one of my 1920s novels, I first choose the location, then rummage around to see who was there at the time. I’ve come across some fascinating characters that way–characters in both senses of the word: Sabine Baring-Gould in Dartmoor; Dashiell Hammett in San Francisco; Marshal Lyautey in Morocco—real life, all of them. People I probably couldn’t have made up.

Not that I don’t create characters from scratch. These are novels, not thinly fictionalized histories—but stirring in well-known places and faces can ground a story, giving (as Gilbert & Sullivan admitted) artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

Then sometimes, one of those actual people elbows aside my own created ones to seize center stage.

[A piece I wrote for Crime Reads, an excellent daily blog, about writing Island of the Mad and historical mysteries in general…]

Cole Porter (2nd from right) in the Piazza San Marco, Venice

The historical mystery is a curious thing. Why worry about a crime that took place decades—centuries—ago? Surely it’s been long solved, with both victim and villain moldering in their graves. The past, after all, is a foreign country, one we may not have a visa for.

But as the writer of historicals, I find it’s not always that clear-cut. Instead, off I’ll set for my own little corner of the Twentieth century—the 1920s—looking forward to a nice long escape from reality as I immerse myself in the mores and customs, fashions and foibles, dusty technology and quaintly simple lives of that sepia-toned world… only to discover the modern age has come along, too, and now stands behind my shoulder, snarling in my ear.

Today is MAD!

Island of the Mad launches today, so shove your way through the doors of your local Indie, or get on the horn to The Great Brazilian River or your favorite online retailer, and snag a copy (I’ve put the links below.)

We had a fabulous pre-launch launch in Scottsdale, with Charleston lessons…

and dancing in the aisles…

…followed by a cocktail party for a smaller group…

Then the next day we had a brunch of friends who are also Friends of Russell!

All of which was tremendous fun. But that’s not all–because tonight is our Official Launch in Santa Cruz, with Venetian masks and Twenties beads, tid-bit nibbling and cocktail sipping—that’s right, today we’re off to Island of the Mad in earnest.

There’ll even be a singalong of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”—or rather, an abused version of it, perpetrated by yours truly.

my time-table was fairly set: the chronology of the series has reached June, 1925, and unless I decided to skip some time, that’s when it would take place. Of course, summers in Venice are a mixed blessing. The humidity is…considerable. But in the Twenties, humidity or no, Venice was THE place for the gilded set to summer,

Hotel Excelsior

with Hons and blue-bloods thick on the ground.

The only thing I couldn’t work in—and I tell you, I was tempted—was the Biennale. Every two years since 1895, the city has hosted the world’s art, and artists. When I was there last year, Biennale was just about to open up, and all the artistic sorts of Europe were coming in.

Beautiful young men in skinny-leg jeans lounged and smoked and called Darling! to each other across the lanes and cafés. Women with sleek haircuts and sleeker dresses ushered their pet artists around and suggested deals.